44 
JBotmiical Reininiscences. 
occasionally the underlip had undergone the same operation. 
Some of them had, instead of the small sticks, the heads of 
little birds in their earlaps. The belt round their waists 
consisted of human hair, the neck was ornamented by chains 
hanging down their back, made of the husks of the pecari, or 
teeth of monkeys, and these necklaces were ornamented with 
large tassels made of bird skins, or roughly stuffed native 
squirrels. We saw very little or nothing of the women and 
girls, who watched us from their hiding place, keeping a re- 
spectful distance. They also had their bodies painted with 
arnatto. Their necklaces consisted of the gnawing teeth of 
the Aguti, Laba^ or the corner teeth of the monkeys, from 
the corners of their mouth towards the ears they were 
tattooed, and their long black hair was carefully plaited and 
below the neck made into a knot. This was the toilet of the 
else well formed fair sex. 
A great number of the inhabitants were afflicted with a 
disease of the eyes ; two were quite blind, and the chief nearly 
so. The blind ones would at least have the satisfaction to 
feel us, and were conducted to shake hands with us and feel 
our faces and hair. The eyes were not inflamed, but covered 
with a whitish skin. This horrid disease astonished us the 
more as we never had found it so prevelant except amongst 
the tribe of the Warraus inhabiting the coast. 
The only difference in the language of the Arekunas and 
Macusis seems to be in the dialect, as the tribes understand 
each other. 
Our two Indians, gone before us, had left already in the 
morning, and the provisions which could be spared by the 
inhabitants were placed in the front of the chiefs hut, but little 
and not substantial at all for hungry stomachs ; and the 
assurance of the chief, that in any of the settlements, before 
reaching Eoraima, we would find as little as we found with 
him, dejected us more than the disappointed hope of an 
abundant meal to-day. 
In consequence of the family war to which our attention 
had been called at Torong-Yauwise, a good many Arekunas 
had gone towards the west ; the provision fields had been 
destroyed by the victorious party, and left uncultivated. 
Game was neither seen in the valley nor on the mountains, 
and the small-sized fish in the rivers, not longer than a 
finger, belonging to the genus Sypostoma, would need 
to have been caught by thousands to satisfy such half 
